Prevalence of dysphagia and economic burden of aspiration pneumonia in patients with stroke or head and neck cancer

April 24, 2020

There have been few epidemiological studies of dysphagia and associated outcomes using administrative datasets. In this study we estimate the proportion of patients with either stroke or head and neck cancer who are additionally diagnosed with dysphagia or aspiration pneumonia, or that have a feeding tube placed. Our analysis is based on a cohort of patients identified in administrative data provided by Alberta Health. We also estimate the number of aspiration pneumonia incidents and associated costs, as well as exploring through regression analysis which, if any, patient characteristics might be correlated with the cost of aspiration pneumonia.